Science

Cannabis smoke found to be just as dangerous as tobacco smoke

by William Atkins

Tuesday, 25 December 2007

Canadian researchers found that the smoking of cannabis contains similar chemicals and carcinogens as the smoking of tobacco. However, they found that the levels of such toxic ingredients were many times higher in cannabis smoke than in tobacco smoke.

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Many studies have been performed on cannabis. A comprehensive list of ingredients expelled by the smoking of cannabis has never been compiled. Thus, David Moir, who is associated with Health Canada, and fellow researchers decided to directly compare the over 4,000 known chemicals and toxins present in tobacco smoke with those in cannabis smoke.

Moir’s team set up a smoking machine to simulate and analyze a human smoking tobacco and cannabis.

Their results found that cannabis contains “similar” numbers of chemicals and carcinogens as tobacco: over 4,000 of them.

Moir also found, however, that the concentrations of these dangerous substances were much higher in cannabis smoke than in tobacco smoke. In fact, they found that cannabis smoke contained twenty times more ammonia and five times more hydrogen cyanide as tobacco smoke.

Third, Moir and fellow researchers found that the second-hand smoke (what they called “sidestream smoke,” or smoke breathed in by persons standing next to smokers) held higher concentrations of nearly all of the chemicals and carcinogens in the cannabis smoke as in the tobacco smoke.

The results of the Moir team study are found in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.

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